(“7 of your trusted connections can introduce you to someone
who knows this person”).

And I wrote,

“So Andrei, how’s it hanging?

Hey, what’s with the job in big pharma?

You’re a genius, man, with medals and shit,

And you ought to be writing those pithy poems

that made you famous.

Keep it real, man,

And don’t forget your roots.Hakim”

And a couple days later I got this back:

“Sorry to disappoint you,

but the poet you write about

and I

are not even related.

I hope he is not bothered by people

looking for a prescription.

Dos vedanya, AV”

Look at me

Look at these breasts, she
says,

here – look at these hips.

You have longed to possess me

in ten thousand sweat-soaked dreams,

yearned to climb my body like a
bridge.

But I am not for

you –

nor for any like you,

and my flesh is sweet for none

such as you.

I wear the hard polish of eyes,

laid on me

and buffed to a brittle sheen

by the crowd

that would have passed over

the chasm of loneliness

using me

to link the shores.

See my breasts, she
says,

counterpoints to every woman

who despairs at the image in the mirror.

I am beautiful

(and
the refrain

soon becomes)

I am beauty itself.

Watch how I move, she
sighs,

consider how the light seems to change

to accept my grace:

I am nothing
you could touch.

I am like

some perfect fruit (she
whispers)

dew-kissed and ripe with

Spring’s joyous flavor –

but I practice

a careful ignorance

believing my beauty will last,

hoping my happiness will come,

praying to find

my own bridge

in the darkness.

On Hearing That Her Lover Had Died

No reason to live when
half your heart is gone.

His weight in ashes

swirls on winds

within.

The cracked air burns

your eyes and

lungs and

your world

bare

clear to every horizon.

No one

– nothing

– every absolute

a fresh skin for you
now.

Your husband

ignorant

cannot fathom the

tearing of your heart –

his own emptiness

after all

sent you to

the other man.

The other man –

a social acquaintance

grown close

too close

but buoying you up

and keeping you sane

amid the maddening

sameness of your life –

is now gone,

an emptiness

you can taste.

And so farewell

the little pink stallion

the pet names and the
whispers.

Farewell the strength

the touching –

all transcendence now

is his alone.

Farewell the man

who held you

against the world’s pain

and touched you

with bright longing.

Tears run out

across the floor and

might just stop all
clocks –

there is no reason

to take the next breath

but it takes itself and

the world is born again

empty.

The Silent After

Here is how it always happens:

inside an air thick with promise,

myself expanding, intoxicated

I drink the smell of her,

this other woman.

In her essence I revel, dissolute…

until I am reminded of you.

But when we grapple in the dark

[if I close my eyes

and if she does not kiss me]

I can almost convince myself

that I am with you

[your long body enclosing mine]

that this grasped and grasping flesh

is yours,

that these fine ribs against which I push

are yours,

the hot breath in my ear

yours,

and this is not

the colorless imitation of joy

or some lonely exercise

in mutual delusion

[for she always
thinks herself

in love with me]

but actually that sacred act of creation:

the making of love

between me and you.

But if she should

between her cries

seek out my mouth

with hers

and if in whispers she

should kiss me and

plant her taste upon my tongue,

or hold my face

in fevered hands and

look into my eyes,

then

I am pulled again into

the awful reality, jerked

backward

like a hanged man’s last thought –

then the room grows chilly

and the grappling and the cries

are over.

Owed to
TPE:The Piggyback Etiology of acronyms

~For Estelle Huisclos

she used the term
‘TPE’ and of course

we knew what she
meant but

there are other
acronyms too

that could relate
to total

power exchange.

for instance, she
might be secretly looking for a

Twisted Pair
Ethernet

with

Theater Provided
Equipment

and a

Third Party
Evaluator

making
‘notes’ in a

Tiny Paper Enclosure.

or she could have
in mind a full set of

Trainer-Peculiar Equipment

for

Therapeutic
Patient Education

(where the P =
adjective).

perhaps in her
mind was a

Très Petite Entreprise

or a

Two Phase Extraction

or
even a rather large

Traveling Players
Ensemble.

who can say?

but i think her
freudian slip was inclining

silkily, with
raging static, toward

Trusted Path
Execution

and

Total Performance
Excellence

and
most definitely

Techno Pre
Eminence –

a
veritable

Trading Partner
Exchange

of swooning
moans and excited nerves

that can
be reached by careful

Teaching Performance
Expectations.

of course, she
might be mechanically minded,

rather
expecting a

Total Pelvic
Examination

with some

Transportable
Pressure Equipment

including a soft but firm

Thrust-Plate
Endoprosthesis

for

Total Partner
Experience

on the way

To Peak Ejection.

and wouldn’t that be

True Player
Entertainment?

my heart rests in the mouth of love

stopped

taken from the motion of my life

as its taste

crawls on the tongue

tongue probing

the grinding teeth

the mouth of love

savoring my no-longer-tender heart

pithy

toughened by every caress and absence

resting in the mouth of love

my heart

awaiting the grinding teeth

in the mouth of love

consumed

eaten

tasted

our hearts savored

hungry

ravenous

never satisfied

delicacies

sweet or

bittersweet

where all hearts are savored

for love licks

even the dry

and brittle hearts

in the heavy hours of night

another one gone…

another one

vanished in the mist of sorrow and regret,

slipped from the moorings of
husband and children

escaped the pain
waiting

by a simple expedient

leaving behind

only questions

and tears.

i think of them

when the day comes swinging into night –

those escapadores

who rode the clouds west

out of our sight –

and when the dawn slips

atop my windowsill

pushing the night ahead of it

over the horizon.

what is it about those times of day,

those moments

neither nadir nor zenith –

horizontal,

flat & level –

that brings back the memory

of the ones we loved

and lost?

and when enough of us have gone,

who will tell the stories?

who will remember each embrace

and loving smile?

who will have words

to speak?

who will remember each face

that slipped into
shadows

each voice
trailed into mist?

~ Sarabanda,
Albania, July 2010

The Expected

no matter where we go

no matter what we see or whom we meet –

we will say over and over again

“this is not what i expected”

you can plan

and plan

until your eyelids are tired

you can figure every angle

and rebound

every corner to be turned –

and you will still say over again

“this is not…”

the world is changing

and they say that you cannot

step into the same river

even once –

yet you will find that it escapes your lips

between your thoughts:

“…what i expected”

life is sweet and the world

is large, filled with ponders

of
unpredictability

and one of the beauties that greets us

over and over again

is the surprise in our eyes

when we hear ourselves say

(as if in a dream)

“this is definitely not what i expected”

~ Kavallouri, Kerkyra,
February 2010

Walking the Dogs

~ for Kay T.

it’s twilight.

it is always twilight

when these feelings come, always

twilight down in her heart

and autumn too

with the smell of leaves blowing

in the wind and

the slanting light

that signals

the end of a time.

she walks slowly

behind the dogs as

they free up their excitement,

wagging at the ends of their tails,

finding everything

a wonder and a joy.

she pulls at the front of her coat

and wishes

for the freedom

of wonder and joy.

it’s twilight

and she walks alone

except for the dogs,

but alone

and softly talking to herself

because she has not found

the man to listen,

the man to tell her

anything

much less the things

she longs to hear.

how long since she’s been

touched? how long?

she opens the door, hangs the leashes on the hook,

pours a cup of tea

and sits in the large empty room.

the book,

the window, the chair,

the dogs at her feet, nuzzled up together

and wondering when she

will throw open the door of her heart

to someone who

can make her feel

as complete as they do.

she looks at the door

from her chair

by the window,

and tries to not curse it.

~ Palm Springs, 2011

Untitled # 43

Somewhere, a girl waits

to hear the summer words.

Somewhere, her plans

take shape to leave

this sandpaper world

in a pumpkin-flavored coach

(dressed like a 3-tiered cake,

berosed & sugared)

arriving, after

a trip over the moon,

at Big RockCandyMountain

where all the diapers

are filled with diamonds

and the dogs

have rubber teeth.

Meanwhile,

she practices persuasive moans

and eye-swoons

while learning

angelic patience.

Somewhere, a man is

learning

to be not

so much a Turk –

a bit lagging perhaps

to join the modern world

but all of Istanbul’s stopped clocks

slowed the poor guy down.

~ Hakim,
Kavallouri, Kerkyra, 2010

ULLAGE

Except for old men like me

who thinks of flotsam anymore?

And jetsam?

All those treasures,

dropped for safekeeping

into the depths

still waiting

for the perfect storm

to uncover them

to send them skirling onto beaches

somewhere

to be found anew….

Except for old men,

believers in legend

treasure-seekers

hunting in old books

the dusty records of the dead,

who thinks of flotsam?

Who thinks of what is gone

or hiding

safe in tided
sands?

Do I know you?

All those possibilities of youth

and our lives like casks

to be filled:

knowledge, money, the houses, cars
and spouses.

Could our barrels ever

be big enough?

And here now

after all the days that have

slipped beneath the waves,

so much is gone…

it seems what’s most important

is ullage.

All that’s gone….

the empty place:

Ullage.

On the Death of Tommy Blue Eyes

[Tommy Odom left in a senseless
accident of his own making in the fall of 2004]

And now he is cast out

of the body

that had served him so well,

and from that place he could not

leave before

he is banished

forever.

He fell in the autumn night

and whatever springtime holds,

he’ll see it from afar.

The beauties

we walk among

he’ll know now

as spirits do.

His beauty

we can only

carry with us.

Where before

he was trapped inside

that body, and

couldn’t leave

by whatever means

he tried,

now he cannot get in.

Of all the places on earth

and in the heavens,

it is the one place

forbidden him

any longer….

That single place that was always

his

and his alone.

Misguided once

he is guided

now

by the light,

and shall not waver

as he never wavered

for his friends –

the family he

created

around himself

on that zigzag road

of his life.

Now he is

everywhere

else

but in that body,

locked out,

and it is empty

of him

forever.

–Hakim

David Hakim is an
internationally-published journalist and award-winning author who has run
several newspapers – and recently received a commendation for his short story That
Man in the London Aesthetica
Competition.He can be reached at dhakim at earthlink.net

Acerca de mí

Posed Perfectly in Dreams

Posed Perfectly in Dreams: 15 bucks for trade edition & $30 for the numbered copies (signed by author, the editor, and by Andrei Rozen, producer of the surrealish cover photo). Author will inscribe each copy. Add 3 bucks for mail. To order, please email to cinesource(at)earthlink.net

They thought I had gutsbut they had it all wrong.I was only frightenedof more important things.~ Charles Bukowski

Those of us for whom the most extravagant promises have become a reality, are, I think, required to seek appropriate expression of their gratitude.

~ Sol Linowitz, American Ambassador

"We will cross our bridges when we come to themAnd burn them behind us."~ 'Cump' Sherman, on his way to the beach

"I'll burn that bridge when I come to it."~ Jodha Nasrudin

Life does not demand more strength than we possess.

Only one thing is possible: not to have run away.

~ Dag Hammerskjold

We may not find things to our likin’ – but we’re gonna dang sure find somethin’ we ain’t seen today.